It’s one thing to sell pirated video games out of the trunk of your car, but it takes a new level of brainless confidence to advertise them on the Internet. Such is what happened to Frederick Brown of Vista, California, as he brought his illegitimate business practice to Craigslist, a popular online service for classified advertisements.

The Computer and Technology Crime High-Tech Response Unit (CATCH) raided Brown’s home in a search-and-seizure operation after being tipped off by the Entertainment Software Association (ESA).

Brown was arrested after over 1,000 pirated optical discs for various video game consoles were found in his home; In addition, brown sold mod-chips for the game consoles to allow the playback of his pirated games.

Officials said Brown had been placing online advertisements for years and now faces 10 counts of felony-level offenses, including grand theft, computer crime and trafficking counterfeit marks.

While the pirate’s advertisements eventually led to his capture, they certainly turned a large-scale profit. Brown is currently free after posting $100,000 bail.

But Brown is just one of many. Despite being a violation of Craigslist’s terms of service, a search for “backup games,” for example, will return just a few of the many listings I found for pirated games on Craigslist. 

Whether it be a lack of ingenuity or just plain ignorance, the pirates simply couldn’t be doing any more to assist officials in their own capture.

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Entry was posted on Wednesday, June 27th, 2007 at 8:19 pm under Legal, Piracy.

Read more entries by George Gardner.
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